


but melt your headaches, call it home

by figure8



Category: K-pop, SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous Relationships, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Character Study, Future Fic, Internalized Homophobia, Introspection, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Past Relationship(s), Platonic Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 20:14:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19383904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/figure8/pseuds/figure8
Summary: Jun can love him, and Jun can know him — but never at the same time.





	but melt your headaches, call it home

**Author's Note:**

> this is my 8jun manifesto. this is also my love letter to panic! at the disco, although you _really_ have to read between the lines for this one. if you know what northern downpour is supposedly about, this is also, i suppose, quite literally a northern downpour au. 
> 
> sometimes love is layered and complicated. the road taken matters just as much as the destination. 
> 
> [listen ❤️](https://open.spotify.com/user/thedeadrobin/playlist/3dxFEiosRRSRjd1g2weBPJ?si=WgyxSLeiQZSyaSNg_ahgRQ)

_ “IF WE WANT THE REWARDS OF BEING LOVED  _

_ WE HAVE TO SUBMIT TO THE MORTIFYING ORDEAL OF BEING KNOWN.” _

— TIM KREIDER

  
  


In the beginning, there is this: a language no one else speaks, bunk beds with metallic frames like in a prison, and the smell of the sea. 

Wen Junhui is annoying. There is no kinder way of putting it. Minghao doesn’t have siblings, but he imagines this is what brothers do: terrible things they can never hold against each other because they are bound by blood and duty. Junhui gets on every single one of Minghao’s nerves, and Minghao endures silently. It’s not just that he doesn’t have anyone else. His Korean is getting better, lately. He’s in this strange, liminal space, floating between meanings. On good days he understands almost everything. On bad days he turns to the others his tongue heavy with despair, trying to read subtleties in the lines of their faces. Junhui is his makeshift gauge, the human thermometer Minghao uses to read a room at any given moment. When Junhui laughs it is safe to laugh. When Junhui listens intently Minghao bites his bottom lip in concentration. Mimicking, he learned in a science book when he was a kid, is the most basic animal behavior. From lion cubs to tiny flightless birds, babies play pretend to survive. So Minghao imitates, sounds and postures and smiles. And Junhui’s easy affection, his reflex-like tenderness, Minghao imitates that too. Junhui stage-whispers once, pointing,  _ I took him under my wing,  _ his fond laughter cascading lighter and brighter than water. In the shade, protected, Minghao grows into his own limbs, boy becoming man. Between them there is gratitude, exchanging hands like currency. 

And this, really, is what Minghao means when he says they are brothers — Junhui earned his right to be a pain in Minghao’s ass, and Minghao wouldn’t give him up for the world. 

 

*

* *

 

Knees, floorboard, knees, floorboard. Metronome,  _ thump;  _ rinse and repeat. Minghao falls, gets up, wipes his sweaty palms on his thighs. Falls, gets up —

_ Practice _ is a traitorous word. It contains implications.  _ Makes better,  _ except Minghao is counting bruises the way one scratches the days that pass on the wall in jail, hungry for the sun.  _ Makes better,  _ except Minghao can barely remember a time when dancing didn’t hurt. Soonyoung’s socked foot pokes him in the ribs, gentle but firm,  _ get up.  _ It’s a mathematical sequence and it cannot be broken. Fall, get up. Circular motions, known motions. 

Junhui comes to stand above him like a palm tree, his branch/arm curved sweetly to shield Minghao from the angry neon light on the ceiling. Unknown motion. 

“We’re taking a break,” he announces. No question mark, no uncertainty. He doesn’t even look the faintest bit tired, Minghao notes. He knows what Junhui looks like  _ tired.  _ Before debut, when they weren’t  _ SEVENTEEN  _ but just kids competing for a seat at the table, Junhui would never go to sleep if his body wasn’t screaming at him like a rusty car. Cars whine before they give up, metallic screech almost like an animal cry, on the side of the road. The point, really, is that Junhui is a well-oiled Ferrari ready to race and yet he’s asking for a  _ break.  _

There is an expression in English —  _ seeing through someone.  _ Minghao feels like his body is made of tempered glass. Almost bulletproof and yet, terrifyingly transparent. 

“Sometimes,” Junhui will tell him, years later, “I think you never quite forgave me for knowing you first, before you learned how to hide.” 

 

*

* * 

 

There is a before and an after Mingyu. There is, more precisely, a moment of recognition; what the Ancient Greeks called  _ anagnorisis,  _ an essential component of any successful tragedy. Mirror to mirror, you and me. It goes a little bit like this: Minghao turns, and frozen in time, suspended in the ether, suddenly he  _ realizes.  _ In Mingyu he finds  _ someone like himself.  _ Watching Junhui was a study in contrasts. A risky choice every time, because Junhui and Minghao are opposites. Complementary, puzzle pieces, but opposites still. Mingyu and Minghao are the same. Copying him is always the safest bet, now that Minghao knows. It comes slowly, knowing. But there is a before, and there is an after. Mingyu reacts the way Minghao reacts. Long lost twins — there are video compilations of the ridiculous amount of times they’ve raised their hands at the exact same second, cackled in unison, finished each other’s sentences. Twin figures, in Indo-European mythology, are often simultaneously lovers and brethren. If one is to push the metaphor further, to its limits; twin heroes like Achilles and Patroclus in the end are simply the same man, multifaceted and heartbreakingly mortal. 

Minghao doesn’t think about the Iliad the first time he kisses Kim Mingyu. His eyes are closed and his chest is aching. He wonders, for a fleeting second, if he ate something that had gone bad. Mingyu’s hands are warm even through the thin red fabric of Minghao’s gym shirt. The inside of his mouth tastes like Doritos and iced coffee. Minghao hates Doritos and is neutral-leaning-on-positive about coffee, but it could be worse. 

When Mingyu takes a step back he’s grinning like a mad dog. Minghao’s heart needs to be put on a leash. 

 

*

* * 

 

Looking back, it’s easier to spot mistakes. Missteps, really, pointing them on a screen — it’s half his job. He makes a list. There’s a Venn Diagram. Blue circle:  _ dating Mingyu.  _ Pink circle:  _ Jun and I slowly drifting apart.  _ They meet in the middle, the prettiest shade of purple, like a bruise.  _ Myungho.  _

Myungho, in Mingyu’s mouth, sounds round and plush and loving. His tongue curves naturally that way; he says it softly, and sweetly, and yearning. Myungho, in Mingyu’s mouth, is an invitation, an open door. Minghao wears it like he would a hanbok. Something not quite his, but a bridge between them, the willingness to compromise. 

Myungho, from Junhui’s lips, trickles down like wet sand and turns to clay. Junhui builds fragile castles out of it and erects walls around both of them. Myungho tastes sour, acrid like smoke maybe, impossible to pin down. It slips between Minghao’s fingers. 

Before, he remembers streams of foreign words and in the middle  _ Minghao  _ like a lighthouse, in Junhui’s voice. In Korean, in English, in Cantonese, no matter their surroundings he could always count on being Minghao to one person, and that was enough. 

 

*

* * 

 

Minghao doesn’t believe calling someone the love of one’s life retroactively matters much. It doesn’t cost a lot, to look back and lament. Regret is comfortable. Regret you can roll yourself in, like a bed of feathers, and then stay there surrounded by white. Regret does not correlate to action, or correction; it is simply acknowledgement, and Minghao has been  _ acknowledging  _ for quite some time now. 

The thing is, lately he’s been going to all these awards shows and dinner parties and crossing paths with Junhui like ships in the night. Lights on, visible from afar, never quite meeting. And the soft edges of Junhui’s smile, the gentleness of his shoulders — a line not quite traveled, but yearned for — it is hard, almost impossible to ignore. In moments like these Minghao allows himself regret. Junhui climbs the stairs to the rostrum hastily, trophy in hand as he flashes his brightest grin to the crowd, and Minghao feels the corners of his own mouth lifting, perfect copy. This distance, he thinks, might have been what they were always destined for. That small dorm room in South Korea had been a glitch, an irregularity. Sometimes the system doesn’t quite work out the way it is supposed to. 

“Minghao,” Junhui calls for him at the after-party, Minghao stuck between a rock and a hard place — except the rock is Zhang Yixing and the hard place the round table hosting the little shrimp canapés. It has become excessively complicated to look at Junhui now that Minghao doesn’t see him every day. His hair is black again, courtesy of his last role being a historical drama. Before that he was playing a rockstar, and his hair had been electric blue. 

“Hi, hyung,” Minghao says in Korean. It’s an inside joke, of sorts. That no matter where they go, they always will be two people in a room full of strangers, speaking a language others don’t understand. 

“I watched your MV,” Junhui beams. “Liked the cars.” 

“I didn’t watch your movie,” Minghao says, sheepish. 

Junhui chuckles, takes a sip of Champagne. “It’s okay. It’s not really that good.  _ I  _ am excellent in it, obviously.” 

“Obviously,” Minghao repeats. Loving Jun, at this point, is a dull ache that never goes away. It travels slowly through bone marrow and sinews, just loud enough to be heard. Proximity does not reignite it. Fires like this one do not need tending to. 

“Are you here with someone?” Minghao asks. 

Junhui’s eyes scan the room, answer enough. They both spot Yanan at the same moment. “Oh,” Minghao stutters. “So, you’re still —”

“Yes.” 

Junhui’s voice is warm. It’s always warm when he’s talking about people he loves, in an unmistakable way, which has always been a comfort. No matter what Junhui’s voice is always warm when he’s talking to or about Minghao. 

The logical conclusion would be to hate Yanan. Real life is a little bit more complicated than that. 

They look good together. Junhui is wearing a dark grey suit, Yanan a crisp white shirt tucked into navy slacks. They’ve color-coordinated the smallest details, muted salmon — silk handkerchief peeking from Junhui’s breast pocket, soft alpaca socks lining Yanan’s brogues. Hating Yanan would mean hating how happy Junhui seems to be. It’s not Yanan’s fault Minghao is a coward. 

Yanan calls him  _ Haohao,  _ exclaims cheerfully when he sees him, invites him to visit some day. What Minghao gets from that is that they moved in together and Junhui didn’t tell him, which he’d like to be more surprised about. 

“I need to mingle,” he excuses himself after a while, mainly to avoid staring at Yanan’s hand on Junhui’s bicep. He bulked up for his last role, and that too is something Minghao doesn’t want to think about. 

From here the story can go two ways, the road forking. A:  _ Chao Yin Zhan Ji,  _ which had been the beginning  _ and  _ the end. B: much, much earlier — maybe as early as can get, which had also been, in a way, the beginning and the end. 

 

*

* *

 

**_A._ **

It goes a little bit like this: Minghao says  _ yah, what do you think this is, a dating program?  _ and means it. Junhui says  _ my first choice is always Minghao  _ and means it. Missed connections, once again. Junhui brings gifts for everyone but spends twice the time picking out Yanan’s bracelet. Minghao thinks it’s adorable. In romance novels the main character has always known, deep down, that they were in love with their best friend, but this is real life. 

 

**_B._ **

It goes a little bit like this: Junhui is shirtless and sitting on the top bunk, scrawny legs swinging to the rhythm of an invisible song. Minghao’s eyes follow the faintly defined lines of his abs, absolutely incapable of looking away. Desire is still an untamable beast. He wrestles with it every night and never comes out the winner. 

Junhui says,  _ so, about what you saw earlier — _

And Minghao says,  _ I didn’t — I didn’t see anything.  _ He repeats it, tone firmer.  _ I didn’t see anything.  _ Junhui will take it like a dagger between two ribs, but to Minghao it is a sacred offering. Don’t ask, more important even than  _ don’t tell.  _

And it is the end, then.

 

*

* * 

 

Mingyu is Minghao’s first love. Seokmin is Minghao’s second love. There are bodies in between, strangers named and nameless. Women Minghao kisses in parking lots and changing rooms, women he takes to bed and never calls again, women he doesn’t allow himself to see enough to fall in love. One boy, and Minghao returns to the dorms sick with worry, literally sick, spends the day retching in the toilet bowl. Mingyu holds back his hair and Seungcheol hovers at the door, frown permanently etched on his forehead. 

“He ate the paper in his sandwich by mistake,” Junhui jokes. He brings Minghao tea with honey after, when everyone’s in bed. Leaning against the doorframe he looks like he has a hundred things to say.

But Seokmin — Seokmin is easy to love. Minghao falls into it headfirst. Willingly, too, risk counted. He figures they both have too much to lose, it has to cancel out somehow. 

(The truth is that he is lonely, and Seokmin is lonely and  _ sad,  _ and by the time Minghao notices he’s already in love enough to want to change that.) 

Seokmin breaks Minghao’s heart in the most sensible way. In his khaki uniform, the hair Minghao loved running fingers through reduced to nothing but fuzz, he looks excessively beautiful. More than Jun or Jeonghan, Seokmin was always the pretty one, in Minghao’s opinion. Drinking in the sight of him like this — duffel bag in hand, shiny black boots, bottom lip red from nervous biting, Minghao wants to draw him. 

“When I come home,” Seokmin starts, hoarse, “You’ll be in China.” 

_ I can wait,  _ Minghao wants to yell. He thinks he can. This love he wants to carry to the top of the mountain. 

“You don’t know that,” he says instead. “Nothing is set in stone.”

Seokmin shakes his head. “You said you wanted to get married. A house by the beach.” 

“And a dog,” Minghao completes. There is gravel piling up at the pit of his belly. 

“Things change,” Seokmin smiles sadly. “But they’re not going to change that fast, Hao.”

When they hug Seokmin holds him so tightly Minghao thinks he can feel their bones grating against each other. Seokmin kisses the side of his neck. 

Junhui finds him on the floor the next day, two large empty bottles of soju on the carpet, no cup. 

 

*

* *

 

The problem with Junhui has always been that Minghao tries his  _ darndest  _ to be good to him in ways that never translate. The problem, really, has always been that Junhui seems to exist on another plane of reality, somewhere Minghao can never quite reach. Minghao is a romantic but he is also practical, and when evaluating a situation his first thought always goes to how  _ he’d  _ want to be treated. 

Exhibit A: opening the wrong door at the wrong moment, catching a glimpse of Junhui with his tongue down Seokmin’s throat, never mentioning it again. 

Exhibit B: Junhui sitting on his suitcase, bags under his eyes almost purple, punched by time square in the face, Minghao screaming on Facetime,  _ I can’t fucking believe they fucked up the visas again  _ and Junhui sighing  _ there’s nothing I can do. Stop yelling, there’s nothing I can do.  _

Exhibit C: Face to face, knee to knee, a bowl of steaming mapo tofu between them, and in the thick vapor words unsaid. He remembers explaining to Mingyu, early on, why people don’t say thank you to family or friends in Mandarin.  _ Good friends are so close — like a part of you. Why would you say please or thank you to yourself?  _

He’s afraid, some days, that he and Jun crossed that border long ago — becoming parts of each other. Unconditional love, bloodbound love, transcendental love — and yet never affirmed. 

Junhui picks up a chunk of meat with his chopsticks. “The company finally booked me an acting job.” 

“That’s great,” Minghao says. It is great. It is also a disaster. The Korean members are all in various states of enlistment. Their Chinese unit barely holds on as is. Hansol has been talking about collabs with American artists lately, which means Pledis is slowly trying to shift him back towards the Western market, which is going to leave Minghao with three members at  _ best,  _ two if Junhui is away for filming. 

“I can say no,” Junhui says. “If you think, you know. You’re the leader. There’ll be other occasions. I don’t know if —”

Minghao raises his pinky, the silver ring shining under the fluorescent light. “Seventeen will always wait for you. You’ve dreamed of this your entire life, I’m not going to tell you to say no.” 

It’s a lie for a truth, to cushion the fall. Minghao thinks, in that moment,  _ I’d want him to say that to me.  _

 

*

* *

 

He always thought it would take more getting used to, dropping the  _ Seventeen  _ from  _ Seventeen’s The8.  _ Joshua says it’s because they effectively stopped being Seventeen a few years before they actually stopped being Seventeen. When he fills his first arena in Nanjing there are twelve flower wreaths in the corridor, soft blue periwinkles and light pink daisies. He locks himself in a bathroom and cries, patting his cheeks with a Kleenex every two breaths to avoid ruining his makeup.

The day Jihoon signs with SM is when it hits him for real. He calls Seokmin, then realizes Seokmin is in rehearsals and calls Mingyu instead. Mingyu picks up, but it’s noisy behind him, busy. 

“I’m getting my makeup done,” is what Mingyu greets him with. “You have four minutes and thirty seconds.” 

Minghao chuckles. “Okay, Naomi Campbell.” 

Mingyu gets it. This is why they’ll always be friends, and how their friendship survived a breakup: Mingyu never does not  _ get it.  _

“Have you called Jun?” he asks, when four minutes and thirty seconds definitely have passed. 

“He has other things to do,” Minghao shrugs. 

“I’d jump in a plane, Hao,” Mingyu says. He sounds terribly earnest. “But I can’t. If I skip  _ fashion week  _ I think my agent might actually go full-on Hannibal Lecter on me.” 

Minghao grimaces. “Please don’t get cannibalized on my behalf.” 

“Then call Jun. You live in the same city. You’ve never been very good at  _ dealing  _ by yourself.” 

Mingyu  _ getting it  _ clearly has its downsides. 

“I promise,” Minghao caves in, because he’s also never been very good at denying Mingyu anything. Back in the day it mainly used to mean cheat days during strict diet periods. Lately it’s been a lot of — this. Minghao doesn’t know when Mingyu became the responsible adult in their relationship but he does not like it one bit.

He does call Junhui. It’s Yanan who picks up. 

“Xu Minghao,” he gets chastised immediately, “You haven’t called in ages!” 

“I’m sorry.” He looks to his feet, a futile gesture considering Yanan cannot see him. “Been busy. Touring, and — you know.” 

“I do know,” Yanan says, softer. “We just miss you.” 

“I was thinking, ah, I — I have free time again, suddenly. And —”

“I heard about Woozi,” Yanan interrupts. “You should come over for dinner this weekend. Jun’s on set but it’s not far from home, he usually comes back to sleep here. I’ll make sure he’s home on Saturday, if that works for you.”

It’s the strangest of feelings, making appointments to see Junhui through someone else. There was a time when all Minghao needed to do was slip under his covers in the middle of the night, and Junhui would wordlessly extend his hand, wrap his arm over Minghao’s side. 

“That does work for me,” Minghao says after a beat. There are layers, to this. 

 

*

* * 

 

Junhui never comes out to anyone, which is funny because  _ everyone  _ knows. Wen Junhui’s homosexuality is the worst kept secret in the idol industry. Minghao could never live like this.  _ He  _ comes out exactly three times: to Jun, eyes glued to the floor —  _ I like — both — I, I like boys, too.  _ To Seungcheol and Jeonghan, swallowing words like spun glass, for the good of the group. And to Seokmin, bumping their shoulders together,  _ me too  _ whispered softly in the darkness. Others know, obviously. Mingyu never asked him to verbalize it, which Minghao is grateful for, because it was way too early — then. 

The point is, Junhui has gay friends, Minghao has  _ friends who happen to be gay,  _ and there is a difference, even if Minghao isn’t quite sure yet  _ what  _ that is. Mainly he thinks it means he doesn’t know shit about what being queer means outside of fucking men, which you’d  _ think  _ would be the main component. In Junhui and Yanan’s living room, for the first time, he realizes it might be a little bit more complex than that.

He’d thought it’d be like playing house. But there is no  _ pretending  _ here; everything from the decor to the smell coming from the kitchen is so quintessentially truthful Minghao is dizzy with it. He looks around and it gets him like an uppercut: every little detail, Yanan’s presence bleeding into Junhui’s, swirling together, indistinguishable. Junhui is wearing oven mitts. That, too, gets Minghao like a punch in the gut. 

“You look sad,” Junhui tells him after desert, elbows resting against the balcony railing. 

Minghao leans back against the wall, opposite him. “Did Mingyu call you?”

Junhui huffs. “No offense, xiao ba, but I’ve never needed Kim Mingyu to tell me how  _ you’re  _ feeling.” 

“You know,” Minghao says wistfully, “I could never quite figure out if you hated him.”

“I like him just fine, and you know that. You’re deflecting.”

“I’m not sad. I’m just — lost. I don’t know. Everyone seems to have moved on.”

“You have a very successful career, Minghao. Some would say you’ve moved on better than most of us.”

“I don’t —”

Junhui pushes himself off the railing, trails a hand down the front of Minghao’s shirt. “I know.” 

Minghao is overtaken with the sudden urge to cry, an invisible hand pressing on his ribcage. When he speaks next it’s audible in his voice. 

“And you?” 

Junhui furrows his brows. “Me?”

“Are you happy?”

“Well,” Junhui says, gaze too piercing not to cut, “I miss you.” 

“That’s not an answer.” 

“It is.” He pauses, takes his hand off Minghao’s chest. They both forgot it was there. 

(That’s a lie. Every time Jun touches him it burns.)

“I’m happy,” he says. “And I miss you.” 

There’s a knock on the glass door, and then it slides. Minghao appreciates the courtesy, and he also appreciates the escape route.

“I made tea,” Yanan says, head poking out. 

Junhui turns to him like a plant to the sun, irredeemable fondness etched on his face. Minghao feels it too. It’s both that Junhui’s emotions have always been contagious and that Yanan makes it terribly easy to love him. 

There are three porcelain cups on the coffee table. Yanan pours jasmine tea with a steady hand, for Minghao, then Junhui, then himself, age hierarchy forgotten. 

In the translucent liquid Minghao sees two truths coexisting, reflecting back against his irises. Right eye, I’m happy; left eye, I miss you. 

 

*

* *

 

It all boils down to this: a moment suspended in time in a dimly lit practice room, the space between them barely a breath but more than a whisper. Back then it would have been a fatal mistake, Minghao knows that. Junhui isn’t Mingyu. A kiss then would have been a seal, and then Minghao would have broken it, inevitably. Other people might be able to settle down at seventeen; Minghao has never been one of them. 

It all boils down to this: he’s turning twenty-eight and spending one night a week in his best friend’s spare room. Soonyoung calls it a quarter-life crisis. The only reason Soonyoung even knows about that is because he refuses to phone other people like a normal human being and only video-calls instead.  _ Seokmin  _ knows because Minghao told him and very thoughtfully says  _ well, I don’t think any of us really know how to function separate from each other.  _

Mingyu also knows because Minghao told him, and he’s a lot more blunt about it. 

“You need to grow some balls and accept you’re in love with him.” 

“I don’t know if I’m in love with him,” Minghao says, receiver stuck between his cheek and his shoulder, snapping his kitchen cabinet shut. 

Mingyu scoffs. “Bullshit. Hey, is that your espresso machine? It sounds like there’s a fucking train in your apartment.” 

He drops a sugar cube in his mug and watches it dissolve with intense satisfaction. “If I don’t get some caffeine I will die. I’m not in denial or anything, I just — is there a word, for, like. I don’t want him to leave Yanan for me.” 

“No more than four shots a day, you don’t want to die of a heart attack.”

“Okay, mom.”

“And yes, there’s a word for that.” The coffee is warm and still too bitter despite the sugar. “But you need to figure this one out for yourself, Hao.” 

“I’m going to ask the internet,” Minghao warns.

Mingyu chuckles. “Please do. Give me a call later, okay?”

“Isn’t it midnight where you are?”

“Yes. Give me a call anyway. I’m up at five.” 

Minghao doesn’t google it. He’s not stupid, and he wasn’t born yesterday, he knows — well, he knows enough. 

There is no straightforward way to say  _ I haven’t caught up with my own life yet  _ without sounding insane or profoundly depressed, and he doesn’t think he’s either. 

It all boils down to this, really: Minghao wants the sun, the moon, and all the stars in between, but the sky is not for sale. 

 

*

* *

 

Junhui folds his leg one over the other, takes a sip from his iced tea. “Sometimes,” he says, “I think you never quite forgave me for knowing you first, before you learned how to hide.” 

“I don’t hide,” Minghao says. 

“You don’t like being known,” Junhui counters. “But you only figured that out after we met, and to you I’ll always be that one brutally honest mirror you cannot avoid.” 

“I don’t —,” Minghao scrunches his nose, “You make it sound like I resent you, or something.” 

“Do you?” 

“I  _ love  _ you.” 

Junhui smiles sadly. “These aren’t contradictory statements.” 

Minghao doesn’t like the way his stomach is twisting on itself, disoriented snake. “Why would I  _ resent  _ you?” 

Junhui rarely looks like saying the truth is taking something out of him, but he does today. “Because I knew you well enough not to wait.” 

“I’m happy you’re happy,” Minghao says, which is not a lie, but  _ is  _ a cope-out. 

Junhui finishes his tea, sets the empty plastic cup back on the table. It wobbles with the breeze. “I know. I don’t think this would work otherwise.” 

_ I’m greedy,  _ Minghao thinks, desperate.  _ I want you to be happy and I want to have you, too.  _

“I’m glad you’re back,” Junhui says, breaking the silence that settled between them while Minghao was trying to reorder the jumble of words inside his skull. They were never the type of friends to coexist in silence, although Minghao has wished they were on multiple occasions. Junhui used to be terrifyingly loud and energetic 24/7. They are older now, he supposes. 

Minghao rolls his straw wrapper around his pointer finger, unrolls it, rolls it again. “I never left.”

“You did. It’s okay. You came back better. I think you needed the distance. It doesn’t always have to be geographical, you know?”

“You’re right,” Minghao laughs, shaking his head, “I do hate that you know me.” 

The sun is setting behind them, sky turning pink. A few stray sun rays fall on the side of Junhui’s face like this, so uncannily similar to stage lights for a second Minghao thinks he’s having an out of body experience. 

“It is good to be known, xiao Hao,” he says. “It is peaceful and quiet. Everyone should have a place to rest their head.” 

“Is Yanan your quiet place, then?”

“Yanan is my home,” Junhui says. “He is where I go when I get tired. Where do you go, Minghao?” 

_ Home,  _ Minghao thinks, blinks. His parents’ house. Junhui’s arms. Seokmin’s bright laughter. Mingyu’s sleepy voice all the way over the Pacific. 

“Oh,” Minghao says. 

Junhui smiles. On the horizon the edge of the earth swallows the sun.

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> testing how much MORE personal and vulnerable i can get through this whole The Author Has Projection Disease thing. please let me know your Thoughts in the comments <3


End file.
